Latest news with #MichelFoucault
Time of India
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Instant scholar: Societies of control - Understanding Gilles Deleuze's vision of contemporary power
Gilles Deleuze 's 1990 essay "Postscript on the Societies of Control" stands as a prophetic and unsettling reflection on how power operates in contemporary society. Written shortly after the death of his philosophical collaborator Félix Guattari and amid a rapidly globalising, digitalising world, the essay is short yet profound. Building on Michel Foucault's concept of disciplinary societies , Deleuze proposes a shift to a new paradigm: the society of control . In this vision, power no longer operates through confinement and institution-building (as in schools, prisons, and factories) but through continuous modulation, flexibility, and the management of flows—of information, bodies, and behaviours. From Discipline to Control: The Evolution of Power Deleuze begins by acknowledging Michel Foucault's well-known analysis of power in modernity. Foucault famously argued that modern societies were disciplinary societies —systems that governed people by confining them in institutions such as schools, factories, barracks, and prisons. Each institution shaped individuals in specific ways, subjecting them to surveillance and training to make them productive and docile. Power was exercised through clear boundaries, spatial confinement, and rules. Deleuze writes, however, that we are now leaving the disciplinary societies and entering a new historical formation—the society of control . In these emerging societies, individuals are no longer moulded in discrete spaces but are constantly shaped by ongoing processes of modulation. In his own words: 'We are in a generalised crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure—prison, hospital, factory, school, family.' Control societies don't rely on rigid structures or borders. Instead, they use technology, algorithms, and networks to govern behaviour dynamically and in real time. Whereas discipline confined bodies in time and space, control disperses them across networks of communication and consumption. Modulation over Moulding One of the most striking metaphors Deleuze uses is that of moulding versus modulation . In disciplinary societies, individuals are shaped like objects cast in a mould—once and for all. In societies of control, however, power operates like a modulation: constantly adjusting, adapting, and reshaping the individual based on real-time feedback. For instance, in a factory-based economy, a worker might clock in, perform a set task, and go home. In the gig economy—a prime example of control society dynamics—the worker is constantly monitored, evaluated, and ranked. Algorithms can suspend, promote, or change their access to work instantaneously. They are not confined but are subjected to continuous modulation. In Deleuze's words: 'Enclosures are moulds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-transmuting moulding continually changing from one moment to the next…' This shift has immense implications: it means that control is no longer primarily about keeping people in or out , but about managing and guiding them as they move, communicate, and live. The Rise of 'Dividuals' One of Deleuze's most prescient ideas is his distinction between the individual of disciplinary society and the dividual of control society. In the past, individuals were treated as whole persons with relatively stable identities. Today, however, digital technologies fragment us into dividuals —data points, behavioural patterns, consumption habits, genetic codes, credit scores, GPS traces, and so on. This fragmentation allows power to operate in far more granular ways. Governments, corporations, and institutions no longer deal with people as holistic subjects, but as modulated sets of traits that can be calculated, targeted, predicted, or excluded. Creditworthiness, for example, is no longer just about who you are, but how your data self behaves in comparison to patterns across vast databases. Social media platforms continuously shape your preferences, interactions, and emotions through algorithmic nudges. This is dividualisation : the atomisation of identity into quantifiable fragments. The Role of Technology and Capital Deleuze was writing in the early 1990s, but his essay anticipated the rise of Big Data, algorithmic governance, and platform capitalism. In control societies, power is not merely political or bureaucratic—it is inseparable from capital and code. The corporation becomes a central actor in governing life, and control is embedded in the very tools we use to live, work, and communicate. He writes: 'The corporation has replaced the factory, and the corporation is a spirit, a gas.' Unlike the factory, which had physical walls and rules, the corporation is often intangible, dispersed, and constantly adapting. It infiltrates our daily life—through credit cards, apps, tracking systems, biometric scanners, recommendation engines—and shapes behaviour invisibly. Control society is thus inseparable from neoliberal capitalism, which seeks to maximise profit not by rigid discipline but by extracting value from every aspect of life: emotions, leisure, health, and attention. Here, even resistance can be commodified and fed back into the system as 'innovation' or 'user feedback.' Education, Work, and Health in the Control Society Deleuze also notes how core aspects of social life—education, work, and health—are transformed in the control society. For example, instead of attending a single educational institution with defined stages and exams, lifelong learning is now the norm, with certifications, training modules, and performance metrics spread across a person's life. Continuous self-improvement becomes a requirement rather than a choice. Similarly, employment becomes a matter of continuous assessment and flexibility. Workers must constantly update skills, adapt to platforms, and market themselves. This is no longer the factory model but a fluid, precarious arrangement governed by digital feedback and risk calculation. Healthcare, too, shifts from episodic care to permanent monitoring. Wearables, biometric tracking, and predictive health analytics aim not to cure but to prevent—and in doing so, render the body into a site of permanent optimisation. Resistance in a World of Control Can there be resistance in a society of control? Deleuze is cautious but not entirely pessimistic. He writes: 'There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.' While surveillance and algorithmic power seem all-encompassing, Deleuze's remark suggests that resistance must be rethought—not as escape from institutions, but as interventions within and across networks. Activism, encryption, data rights, open-source technologies, and acts of refusal are some examples. Control does not mean total domination—it means new forms of negotiation, conflict, and creativity. The task, for Deleuze, is to understand how control works in order to find ways of subverting or redirecting it. A Philosophy Ahead of Its Time Gilles Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control is less a blueprint than a diagnosis—a philosophical reflection on emerging conditions of power. With astonishing clarity, it anticipated the rise of digital capitalism, algorithmic governmentality, and the fragmentation of the self into data points. By contrasting the disciplinary societies of the 18th to 20th centuries with the control societies of today, Deleuze offers a framework for understanding how power adapts in fluid, decentralised ways. His concepts of modulation , dividuals , and the corporate spirit have become even more relevant in the era of smartphones, cloud computing, and AI surveillance. Ultimately, Deleuze challenges us to move beyond nostalgia for older forms of power and to grapple with the new logics that govern our present and shape our future. Postscript on the Societies of Control - Gilles Deleuze 'Instant Scholar' is a Times of India initiative to make academic research accessible to a wider audience. If you are a Ph.D. scholar and would like to publish a summary of your research in this section, please share a summary and authorisation to publish it. For submission, and any question on this initiative, write to us at instantscholar@
The Hindu
24-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Militarised Kashmir: Where Peace Remains Elusive
Published : May 24, 2025 18:15 IST - 5 MINS READ In the shadow of the Himalaya, the Kashmir Valley—once serenaded by poets—is now eerily quiet. The hush is not peace but paralysis, a silence heavy with occupation, suspicion, and forgotten promises. Once envisioned as a crown jewel of India's postcolonial federation, Kashmir today lies buried beneath a fortress of military installations, surveillance drones, and barbed wire. India's claim of development is dwarfed by the reality of desolation. With nearly 700,000 troops stationed in the Valley, Kashmir holds the distinction of being one of the most militarised zones on earth. The omnipresence of military boots is not incidental; it is intentional. This is the face of state power in the 21st century—what Michel Foucault described as 'biopower', the ability to manage life by calculating what lives, and what dies. India's defence budget swelled to $72.6 billion last year, outpacing healthcare and education combined. Pakistan, though economically beleaguered, follows a parallel track, investing in F-16s and Chinese drones while millions of its citizens struggle with food insecurity. This is not budgetary imbalance; it is a political theology that prizes territorial domination over human well-being. Arms race Both nations have adopted what Noam Chomsky termed the logic of the 'manufactured enemy': an ever-present threat used to justify the machinery of war and the erosion of civil liberties. Kashmir serves as this manufactured arena, a theatre where nationalism is rehearsed through force, not dialogue. Also Read | The LoC is calm again, but Kashmiris still live under the shadow of war The greatest casualties are not just lives lost but futures erased. In rural Kashmir, over 60 per cent of schools lack reliable electricity or clean drinking water. A UNICEF report said that 70 per cent of children in the region show signs of psychological trauma. Curfews, lockdowns, and Internet blackouts have made learning episodic and livelihoods impossible. Media narratives from New Delhi or Islamabad rarely capture these subtleties. Instead, Kashmir is reduced to two binaries: security and sedition. The lived experiences of farmers unable to sell fruit owing to blockades or schoolgirls whose teachers have fled for safer jobs are ignored. These human costs are not collateral damage—they are the central plot. Colonial playbook Both India and Pakistan emerged from the crucible of anti-colonial struggle. Yet both have internalised and intensified the colonial playbook. Surveillance, sedition laws, mass incarceration, and enforced disappearances are mechanisms inherited from imperial administrators. As the philosopher Giorgio Agamben warned, we now live in a permanent 'state of exception', a place where constitutional rights are suspended indefinitely in the name of security. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in India and Pakistan's draconian anti-terror legislation have normalised impunity. Soldiers shoot without consequence. Homes are raided without warrants. Dissenters vanish without trial. In this zone of lawless legality, human rights are not protected—they are strategically erased. Kashmir is not just a case of state control; it is a laboratory of 'necropolitics', a term coined by the philosopher Achille Mbembe. In necropolitical regimes, power is exercised not just by preserving life but by deciding who may die, and how. The border, once a demarcation, becomes a weapon; the checkpoint, a ritual of humiliation. The violence is intersectional. In India, Dalit and tribal soldiers, drawn disproportionately from marginalised communities, are sent to patrol territories where they are simultaneously feared and expendable. In Pakistan, it is young, jobless Pashtuns who are conscripted into the line of fire. This is a shared tragedy: militarism consuming the poor to defend the illusions of the powerful. Kashmir's suffering Arms dealers from the US, Israel, Russia, China, and Türkiye profit from the suffering in Kashmir. Between 2020 and 2024, both India and Pakistan ranked among the top five arms importers in the world. Surveillance systems, anti-riot gear, and sniper rifles are marketed not only for defence but for suppression. The global military-industrial complex has no morality—only contracts. International institutions offer rhetoric but little resolve. The UN and the World Bank note rising instability in South Asia, yet the economic interests of weapons-producing states outweigh the calls for justice. This is neoliberal militarism at its most insidious: state violence funded by international finance, legitimated by silence. If there is to be a future for Kashmir—and for South Asia at large—it must begin with moral clarity and policy courage. What India, Pakistan must do First, India and Pakistan must urgently recalibrate their defence priorities. Diverting even 20 per cent of military expenditure toward healthcare and education could end child malnutrition in India and rebuild Pakistan's crumbling schools. Second, an international embargo on Kashmir-bound weaponry must be seriously considered. Countries that arm governments to suppress citizens must be held accountable. No peace is possible with rifles aimed at classrooms. Third, a credible peace process must centre not just the states but the people. Kashmiris—Muslim, Pandit, Sikh—must be at the table. Political resolution cannot be achieved through nationalist tokenism or bureaucratic decrees. It demands listening to those who have borne the weight of war, curfew, and betrayal. Also Read | Fragile peace, persistent tensions, and the limits of diplomacy Arundhati Roy once distilled the region's tragedy into a single line: Kashmir remains the subcontinent's most haunting remnant of Partition. But in truth, it is also the unfinished dream of postcolonial dignity. We must continue to believe that Kashmir, a region rich in culture and history, can rise above the barbed wire and gunfire to embrace freedom, equality, and justice. The ghosts of the Valley are not silent. They are asking the subcontinent, what kind of nations do you wish to be? Militarised shells ruled by fear or plural democracies animated by hope? The answer may determine not just Kashmir's fate but the moral soul of South Asia itself. Debashis Chakrabarti is a political columnist and Commonwealth Fellow, UK.
BBC News
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Stoke-on-Trent: New play explores modern prisons and justice
A new play by an arts organisation that works with prisoners and staff in UK prisons will explore society's relationship to Acts is set in a fictional prison and will ask audiences in Stoke-on-Trent to reflect on their beliefs about punishment and consider whether there are other ways to achieve will be performed at B arts at their site in Hartshill Road from 9 to 17 April. The cast includes a mix of professional actors, people who will be making their first stage appearance and some who have previously been in play was made by prison arts specialists Rideout, along with B arts and members of community interest company Expert Citizens. Drawing on ideas discussed by French philosopher Michel Foucault in his work Discipline and Punish, the play explores the development of the modern director Saul Hewish, who is also a teaching fellow in theatre at the University of Warwick, is a leading practitioner in using drama and theatre with Hewish said: "I have worked using drama and theatre in prisons for nearly 40 years, and the system is in as worse a state that I have ever seen it. "This play sets out to get audiences to think about punishment and how we use it. Is prison always the answer, or might there be other ways to help victims achieve 'justice'?"He added: "We have been making the play with people who have lived experience of multiple disadvantage, including custody, some of whom have never done drama before. Their ideas have very much informed the content of the play." Rideout has also been working with the Men Who Make Things group, run by B arts. Members have helped to build the set and a mini-museum of instruments of punishment, which audience members can see before and after the show. Men Who Make Things is a group for men who have experience of poor mental play is co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council England. It is part of a wider research programme called Staging Justice led by Dr Sarah Bartley from London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
